ATP production, look at all those atoms right in place
Notice: you are engaging in a enormous assumption that they even have a right place (and that they are somehow in it). If you want to have a serous conversation about it: reformulate your ideas without these assumptions, imo.
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The apparent regularity of even microscopic molecules is entirely contingent upon extremely random chance encounters between the molecules which motivate the various protein activities. More often than not the molecules coming into contact with these protein complexes are not “in the right place” and do not serve any function. The only amazing thing here is how evolution and DNA has preserved the information which encodes for the rNA synthesis of these molecules over time. And that, as any good evolutionary biology student knows, is a product of billions of years of random chance mutations. There are naturally layers of selection once the proteins become more complex, but it’s highly unlikely that God or any other divine source is “placing” these molecules where they need to be. The sheer randomness of these reactions is what should cause wonder, not an appeal to God for apparent design.
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This seems to be an example of the “one true sequence” fallacy that I learned about from Isaac Asimov’s writings, and expanded upon by Calilasseia on this forum.
People look at the complexity of, say, an insulin molecule, and assue that nothing else would work . . . and that this insulin molecule is perfect. They make the assumption that this insulin molecue–in order to exist in its present form–must not have come from chance because it would be like getting 100 royal flushes in a row playing poker or something.
The problem with this argument is that there are any number of insulin molecules that would work just fine.
Diabetics have taken pork and beef insulin for decades, and they get along just fine, and pork and beef insulin are similar–but not identical–to human insulin.
In fact, I would wager (and offer favorable odds) that if we scoured the animal kingdom and assessed every form of insulin . . . that we might find a form of insulin from some animal that works even better than human insulin.
It is like this with almost every substance in the human body.
This is why this video is total bullshit.
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Yes, the more common name is the gambler’s fallacy used for the now debunked creationist argument of irreducible complexity. The flaw is that it fails to account for the possibility of gradual evolution, and the emergence of complex systems through a series of simpler, functional steps. It essentially assumes that a system must be fully functional from the start, ignoring the evidence of evolutionary pathways that lead to complexity.
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A well known example that creationists latched onto was the bacterial flagellum, insisting it could not have evolved, as removing any part would mean it cannot function. However there are thousands of different flagella in bacteria, which vary considerably in form and even function.
The best studied flagellum, of the E. coli bacterium, contains around 40 different kinds of proteins. Only 23 of these proteins, however, are common to all the other bacterial flagella studied so far. So contrary to creationist claims, it is possible to make considerable changes to the machinery without mucking it up.
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I agree with you.
The creationist fallacy with the bacterial flagellum is of particular interest to me, as they hold up the flagella in court cases involving intelligent design.
On the surface, their arguments seem to make sense to people who don’t understand science too well . . . and they capitalize on this ignorance to include religion in science classes.
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They also fail to see their false dichotomy, as even were evolution falsified entirely tomorrow, it would not in any way evidence any deity, or creationism.
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